He meant it with an intensity of will utterly beyond
the inferior faculties of a tiger.
As is the case with constitutionally brave men, the full view of the
danger interested Lieutenant D'Hubert. And directly he got properly
interested, the length of his arm and the coolness of his head told in
his favour. It was the turn of Lieutenant Feraud to recoil. He did this
with a blood-curdling grunt of baffled rage. He made a swift feint and
then rushed straight forward.
"Ah! you would, would you?" Lieutenant D'Hubert exclaimed mentally to
himself. The combat had lasted nearly two minutes, time enough for any
man to get embittered, apart from the merits of the quarrel. And all at
once it was over. Trying to close breast to breast under his adversary's
guard, Lieutenant Feraud received a slash on his shortened arm. He did
not feel it in the least, but it checked his rush, and his feet slipping
on the gravel, he fell backward with great violence. The shock
jarred his boiling brain into the perfect quietude of insensibility.
Simultaneously with his fall the pretty servant girl shrieked
piercingly; but the old maiden lady at the window ceased her scolding
and with great presence of mind began to cross herself.
In the first moment, seeing his adversary lying perfectly still, his
face to the sky and his toes turned up, Lieutenant D'Hubert thought he
had killed him outright. The impression of having slashed hard enough
to cut his man clean in two abode with him for awhile in an exaggerated
impression of the right good will he had put into the blow.
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